Get lost forever in the smell and spices of Indian food at The Masala Trail. By Jigyasu Joshi
The décor has been done up to replicate Indian streets. One wall is sprawled with two large autos made out of saris. There’s a hand cart too but it has been suspended from the ceiling along with a life-size effigy of a vendor. An old scooter that’s quirkily anchored to the ceiling will take you down the nostalgia lane.
The restaurant is opened up in the place of Shiv Sagar by the same owner. Though we hoped for a filling food evening, the place was bit of a downer. There were certain dishes which stole the show, while there were some that disappointed us. The menu at The Masala Trail spreads through lengths and breathes of the country. In a bid to incorporate the street food from the all around India, the restaurant missed out on the taste of some of their dishes.
We started with Pao Bhaji, Banarasi Kachori Subzi and Kanpuria Gadbad Chat. The bhaji was more watery and I think it should have been better as one expects street style food only. Banarasi Kachori Subzi were mini stuffed dough balls served with potato curry. The potato curry tasted fine, the kachoris were soft and the flavours of the stuffing and the curry were like the ones you can have at the street sides of Varanasi. The next dish was the Gadbad Chat. True to its name, the chat had fried potato tikkis, potato curry and all kinds of chutneys. The amalgamation of all the chutneys with potato curry and tikkis was perfect. And it was the first dish from the restaurant that surprised us in a good sense.
We safely moved on to try the Dal Baati and Churma. The pea stuffed baatis failed to impress us again. So did the daal. The rajasthani spices and flavours were absent in the dish. The churma however was fine. With levelled sweetness, the churma did save the daal baati. The one dish which impressed us completely was the masala dosa. The mashed potato stuffing was light on spices and the dosa covering was crisp from the corners and thick in the middle. Just the way we like it. The sambhar with the dosa was also properly spiced and had prominent taste of garam masala. It will not be an exaggeration to say that it was worth a tough fight to the South Indian restaurant in the vicinity.
We ended our meal with Haji Ali Fruit Cream. Unfortunately, just like the beginning, our end of the meal was also disappointing. The fruits in the fruit cream were frozen. Chilled our teeth. And the whole sweet dish was unusually cold, because of which the sweetness of it could not be judged. At the end, we would say that the place do have few outstanding dishes but still needs to get better.